Keppan - The Blood Oath: Part 1

By Dave Lowry

Editor’s Note: This is first
of a two part article. Part 1 discusses the distinctive nature and
exclusivity of Samurai fighting arts during
Japan’s feudal period, and how samurai’s admittance to a
school (ryu) of training often required him to sign an oath of allegiance
to the martial arts organization. Part
2 delves deeper into the nature
of this commitment while also comparing the nature of warrior training
in feudal Japan to that of today’s new martial arts such as judo,
aikido, karate, and kendo within which such allegiances are no longer
practical.

“Now, we’ll start with this band of robbers and call it
Tom Sawyer’s gang. Everybody that wants to join has to take
an Oath, and write his name in blood.”

--Mark Twain, The Adventures
Of Huckleberry Finn

Every since Hollywood discovered the martial arts as a medium for attracting
viewers, audiences for TV programs and movies have been entertained with all
sorts of fanciful plots which involve the here gaining admittance into a secret
school of fighting arts, a task at which he succeeds only after enduring some
sort of tests of his commitment and resolve.

It is always a period of initiation and he must prove himself worthy
of the tradition he is about to enter. The master is always reluctant
to teach him, the art is ever so secret and rare, and so this process
tends to be mysterious and arduous, dramatic and frequently painful.

The truth is, in the case of most classical martial koryu (classical
martial arts, systems begun before the beginning of the "modern" Meiji
era (1868), invariably a bit less theatrical. In the first place, the
typical aspirant to a school of martial art in the feudal age was, almost
without exception, a member of the samurai or warrior class.

Non-warriors, farmers, merchants, artisans; these people had little
time to pursue the exacting and exhaustive study of fighting on a battlefield
and of course, they would have had little reason to want to. Non-martial
fighting arts, e.g, karate, kung-fu, etc., have virtually no place in
the scheme of combative skills in Japan. Fighting in that country during
the feudal period was considered to be the work of professional men-at-arms.
These were men employed by feudal lords as a kind of standing army. Therefore,
it was to the advantage of those lords, or daimyo, to retain martial
arts teachers among their vassals. The preponderance of martial koryu
were attached in one way or another, to specific daimyo or powerful military
families. So, if you were a young man of the samurai rank retained by
say, the house of Suzuki, then you would automatically go for martial
training to the ryu (a martial arts tradition) that was under the auspices
of the Suzuki clan. You didn't have to sit out in the rain for days waiting
to get his attention. Or mutilate yourself as a sign you had been accepted.

In some cases, however, a martial ryu may have been more or less independent
of its headmaster, even if he was a retainer of a particular daimyo,
may have had his lord's permission to accept whatever students he liked.
When an aspirant martial artist approached a master with whom he had
no formal connection requesting admission into the master's system, he
would, if at all possible, bring a letter of introduction, or shokai.
The shokai would have been written by someone known to and trusted by
the master, attesting to the character and aptitude of the would-be student.
Even if this letter was presented and accepted, it was not uncommon for
the student to be put off in one way or another.

Masters in the classical martial ryu had their own personalities, of
course, just like the rest of us. And when you stop to think about it,
someone who devoted the majority of his waking hours in training in ways
to shorten the lives of others by violent means could be expected to
have his share of behavioral quirks. These men could be obtuse in accepting
a new pupil. Everyone is surely aware, in one form or another, of the
story of the master who accepted a student only to have the student perform
cooking and cleaning tasks. When the student was thus engaged, the master
would sneak up and fetch him a whack with a stick, appearing at odd times
and always trying to catch the student off his guard.

Takeuchi-ryu students practice
a throwing technique. Students in this ryu continue to sign keppan
to seal an oath to the ryu. Photo by Wayne Muromoto

Eventually, so the story goes, the student learns that the increased
awareness he learns through this training is a kind of mastery itself.
It's a nice story and perhaps may have some basis in historical fact.
But the truth is, the warrior in the era of Sengoku ("Warring States" period)
needed to acquire skills that would keep him alive on the battlefield,
in fights that could come at any time. Unlike the practitioner of Zen
Buddhism, who could kill a decade or two in seeking enlightenment,
the warrior needed at least an introduction to the practicalities of
a combative
art rather quickly. And so instruction in a martial art was at least
begun with the students' being accepted into the ryu, in most cases.

Before beginning his training, however, it was common for this student
to be required to sign an oath of allegiance to the ryu. It is very
difficult to convey the seriousness with which these oaths were undertaken.
We live in a world in which individuals routinely swear to tell the
truth in courts of law and go right on to tell the most outrageous
of falsehoods. We live In an increasingly non-secular world in which
the idea of pledging fealty to some higher being (or even, in the case
of marriage vows and such, to one another) is quaint at best. In order
to understand just how serious these oaths were, one must understand
first that nearly all martial ryu had deep and strong connections with
their own, particular deities, mostly Buddhist, some of Shinto origin.
These were supernatural patrons of the ryu and it was to them that
one made his oath.

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About The Author:

Dave Lowry is a writer and historian specializing in Japan
and traditional Japanese culture. He has been a student of the modern
and classical martial disciplines of Japan since 1968 - including karate,
aikido, the bo and kenjitsu. His columns have appeared for years in a
variety of martial arts magazines and he is also an accomplished calligrapher.
His books include "Sword and Brush - The Spirit of the Martial Arts" and "Autumn
Lightning: The Education of an American Samurai". He is a regular
contributor to FightingArts.com.